Tuesday, January 13, 2009

For Blood, Born of Osiris, Impending Doom, Emmure, Unearth – Station 4 – St. Paul, MN

As soon as I heard Born of Osiris was playing this show, I knew I was going. I love their stuff and couldn’t wait to see them live.

The website for Station 4 said the show started at 6:30 and was all ages. Fine. I showed up at 6pm expecting to walk right in. Alas, no, the doors open at 6:30, so I was waiting outside in the cold and snow. Have you been to Minnesota in January? Here’s an idea of what it’s like if you're sitting in my car:Yeah, that’s minus 17.

I’ve got jeans and a sweatshirt on, so I’m freezing. But I’m not a stupid teenager, so I didn’t have shorts and a t-shirt on. Morons.

For Blood started the show. They’re a good tough-guy metal/hardcore mosh band. The drummer is actually REALLY good for a HC drummer. It’s nice to see. The guys looked like they liked being there. I bought their CD and expect it to be pretty good (haven’t listened to it yet).

Then, Born of Osiris took the stage. They were super tight and had awesome vocal interaction between the mains singer and the keyboardist (yes, keyboardist). The drummer was amazing, but the two guitarist kind of stood there noodling their awesome solos. I understand what you are playing is difficult, but don’t watch your fingers. And to steal a line from an x-roommate, the Asian guitarist had no business with that beard. The keyboardists moved around a lot and when he wasn’t playing, he’d move around the stage – go him for having stage presence – that’s nice to see. The bass player was really good but kind of got lost in the mix. And even when there were fruity guitars, the vocals still stayed tough – that’s how it should be. Great band, but I think better on cd when you can pick up on all the awesome stuff they do.

Impending Doom is a severely down-tuned and boring death metal band. They had a couple of breakdowns thrown in but even that didn’t get the crowd moving. Their gimmick is wearing matching black dress shirts with what I assumed was a pentagram on the pocket. I thought that until they started preaching about their lord and savior Jesus and also noticed they used the word “frick” enough to annoy me. Apparently, they’re a severely down-tuned and boring x-tian death metal band.

Emmure is a band I don’t give enough credit to. I like them a lot and now that I’ve seen them live, I think they kind of stole the show a little bit. Even though they had some hand clapping parts, they were still tough. They were very professional on stage, playing, presence, and speaking – lots of energy and talent. The drumming was amazing and sometimes it seemed like breakdown after breakdown (not necessarily in a bad way). The singer didn’t thrill me because he forgot to use consonants in a couple of spots. Just “agh agh agh agh agh” for long periods. Then he would yell, “Come on, you know the words!” hilarious, but I don’t think he was joking.

Unearth is a great band. I’ve tried NOT to like them since they kind of got big there for a while. But there’s a reason – I really think they’re a great band. I just forgot how good they were. The guitarists were both super talented and had some hilarious stage antics like they actually enjoyed being on stage. The drumming was top notch as expected, but still great to see live. There was a little handclapping, but not enough to be annoying. They played tons of their older stuff which ruled and even the new songs sounded awesome. I’m glad I didn’t leave early.

And I’ve talked about Station 4’s sound before, but I still hate only having one guitar per channel. It always sounds like I’m driving in my friend Coach’s car when he only had the left speaker functional. The songs sound totally different. Even if you put a little of the left guitar in the right speaker, it sounds better.

Top 5 things about the show1. Emmure2. Unearth3. Born of Osiris4. Chatting up one of the scene kid’s moms (who was my age – ouch)5. For Blood